


When the Light Goes Out

by beautyoftheshadows



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautyoftheshadows/pseuds/beautyoftheshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hides himself away because Clara Oswald was no Amy Pond, no Girl Who Waited, no first face, but she was herself, and he wonders why he ever thought that wasn't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Light Goes Out

The world fractures around him. He spins around, tailcoats swirling, looking for a flash of her hair or the edge of her dress, listening for her laugh or the sound of her footsteps racing down the stairs, the way they do every Wednesday. But no matter how desperately he hopes, how fervently he wishes, there’s no sound but the beating of his heart in his ears, and there’s nothing to be seen except the pieces of a world he thought he could love again as long as she  kept holding his hand.

The man he’s never met, tall, dark-skinned, and sharply dressed, pulls out a cigarette and fumbles for a lighter, but before he finds it, the Doctor is taking the cigarette from his hands, dropping it to the floor, and crushing it under his heel. “No smoking,” he growls.

- _and Clara is giggling as she reassures her landlord that no, she doesn’t smoke, and yes, she’s sorry this is the fifth time this week she’s set the smoke detector off, and then she’s punching him lightly in the arm because apparently even though she finds it funny, he’s not supposed to laugh at the fact that this is the fifth soufflé she’s burned this week, and –_

The Doctor storms angrily out of the apartment.

* * *

He sulks again. He parks the TARDIS in an orbit around the moon- not the Earth's moon, of course, that's too obvious

- _"Everything about you humans is rather obvious, you know."_

_"Shows what you know."-_

It's the moon of some far-off planet he's never been to, and there's nothing to do on the surface, except shopping and dining and dancing and maybe this was the wrong place to come because Clara would've loved it. And he hides himself away, because Clara Oswald was no Amy Pond, no Girl Who Waited, no first face, but she was herself, and he wonders why he ever thought that wasn't enough.

* * *

He goes to her funeral in much the same way as he went to her mother's, by hiding behind a tree and watching the mourners from afar. He tells himself it's because he isn't wearing black, but he's had a year to change, and he hasn't because he's still wearing the outfit he was wearing the last time he saw her

- _the best weeks are the ones he skips, the ones where the instant Clara runs out of his TARDIS and waves good-bye, he fast-forwards to next Wednesday, just to see her again. And it is one of those days, so he doesn't mind climbing the stairs up to her apartment, or he doesn't until he sees that the door is wide open and most of the furniture is gone, and the man, who apparently is Clara's landlord, tells him that the girl who lived here died last week and the Doctor's world just fractures into a hundred thousand tiny fragments he doesn't have the strength to pick up and put back together-_ _  
_

The Doctor goes back to his TARDIS and slams the door, kicking the nearest piece of valuable equipment he can find and ripping a lever off his console and bursting into tears as he slides to the floor. He doesn't cry like this, alone on the floor of a time machine and it's just not fair because for once it isn't his fault, and he's so used to the idea that everything is that it would be easier to handle if it were. At least then he would deserve the pain.

* * *

He sleeps that night, for the first time since Manhattan, and it may be awkward, uncomfortable sleep on the floor of his smoking console room, but it's going to be alright, he knows. Because he's sad, he's desperately, heart-wrenchingly unhappy, but at least he can feel

- _she smiles down at him from the steps of the Vienna Opera House, or, rather, the replica of it on Satellite LII, and his hair is getting soaked from the rain created by the artificial atmosphere and he leans his head back to taste it. "Not too bad," he says, "does taste a bit like strawberry lemonade," and she gives him a look and shoves him a way when he tries to make her taste it and he doesn't say 'I love you' and she doesn't say it back, but she knows like Rose knew and this is one sentence that will never need saying_ -

* * *

 

The next day, he leaves tulips on her grave and runs off to see the universe.

 


End file.
